Neighbourhood culture and immigrant children’s developmental outcomes at kindergarten

This study examined the relationship between immigrant children’s cultural background, the socio-economic and cultural composition of children’s neighborhoods, and children’s developmental outcomes at kindergarten. A hypothesis of concentrated socio-cultural capital as a buffering resource for immigrant children growing up with socioeconomic disadvantage was tested against one that proposed the two factors would conjointly put children’s development in double jeopardy. The study drew from a representative population-level database for the ethno-culturally diverse Lower Mainland in British Columbia (BC), Canada, and included administrative education and immigration landing file data. The results of the study corroborate previous research showing that family and neighborhood poverty are highly detrimental to almost all children’s developmental outcomes. The association between neighborhood cultural density and developmental outcomes depended on neighborhood contexts (wealthier or poorer) and a child’s cultural background; children from the Mandarin-speaking/Chinese cultural group had lower developmental outcomes in neighborhoods with greater cultural density, those from the Punjabi cultural group showed better developmental outcomes with increased cultural density only in poorer neighborhoods, and the English/Canadian children showed better developmental outcomes with increased cultural density only in wealthier neighborhoods. Findings are considered in relation to ...
Source: Early Childhood Research Quarterly - Category: Child Development Source Type: research